Last month, TiVo repurposed their iconic thumbs up/down buttons for an “Advisors” experiment — providing viewers a method to rate The Voice finalist performances. And the results are in, with over 40,000 recorded clicks correlating perfectly to show results:

Contestant

Thumbs Up

Thumbs Down

Tessanne Chin

73%

27%

Jacquie Lee

61%

39%

Will Champlin

53%

47%

We hope this is something TiVo intends to flesh out, as it could be compelling on a number of levels – both in terms of offering more compelling interactive advertising (versus the gratuitous pause menu ads) and enhancing the appointment television experience for big events. Indeed, next up for TiVo is the Super Bowl:

Again, our thanks for your assistance. As some of you guessed, this was a test run for a larger experiment we’ll conduct related to a certain football game in February. We’ll send out the details in a few weeks.

LG’s re-ignition of webOS as a fresh, fun, and spry smart television platform has been generating a lot of buzz here at CES. Indeed, in my limited exposure, it looks quite nice. But it’s not all about us… as a major component of LG’s webOS strategy revolves around interactive advertising.

The strength of webOS is also its weakness in regards to ads. While most smart TVs bury their apps in submenus, with these sets, the UI is front and center and every activity is an “app” – including accessing live TV, settings, etc. Meaning, advertising may permeate the webOS and television viewing experience. Am I being overly sensitive (to Truvia and McDonalds) or is this a deal breaker?

Perhaps another benefit of the TiVo 20.3.8 software update is a framework to tabulate in-show tenor by repurposing those iconic TiVo thumbs up/down remote buttons (versus their original purpose to rate programming as a means of generating suggestions). Classified as an “experiment” by “TiVo Labs”, select customers have been recruited to test this new functionality:

You can use the Thumbs buttons as many times as you want throughout the episode.

You can use the Thumbs buttons more than once on the same performance.

Feel free to fast-forward, pause, and rewind as usual.

You don’t have to watch the episode live as it airs, but if possible, please try to watch the episode on Monday night. Sound interesting? Just watch and click — that’s all you have to do. There’s no online survey, just “vote with your remote.”

In the other corner, Sling lays out a streaming comparison that is mostly correct. TiVo Roamio is currently limited to iOS and WiFi, whereas a Slingbox is largely agnostic when it comes to connection and platform. Sling claims Roamio is incapable of automatic quality adjustment, which we now know to be inaccurate Continue Reading…

On the cusp of out-of-home streaming, and as anticipated, TiVo has begun to dial up Roamio advertising ahead of the holidays. By way of Steve Lunceford, as you can see above, Sea-Tac Airport is already blanketed in thousands of square yards of TiVo vinyl promoting the Roamio’s ability to offload recordings for our in-flight viewing pleasure. Beyond this multipanel behemoth, Steve also came across a lighted sign in a seating area that communicates:

Make travel plans with your TV shows. Download recorded cable shows to watch on your iPad. Only with TiVo Roamio.

Of course, only two of the three Roamio models… actually roam. But we’ll leave that mess to TiVo’s marketing and legal teams.

No one was more excited than I to see that the ACC Digital Network had created a Roku channel. And my excitement lasted just long enough to download the channel and fire up highlights of former Duke basketball player Mike Dunleavy. Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ended.

Where to start? With the video quality? Horrific. How about the overall selection of clips? Lame. And then there’s my favorite: the advertising.

You see, the ACC Digital Network has partnered with a company called adRise, which describes itself as “the largest content distribution and advertising monetization engine for streaming and connected TV devices.” The “monetization engine” throws up an advertisement before every single clip available on the ACC channel. It doesn’t matter if the clip is 30 seconds, or if you exited out of a clip and are trying to return to resume play. There’s an ad. And not just any ad, but the same ad, over and over and over. (Thanks, Progressive lady.)

It’s 2013. Streaming video companies should know by now not to over-saturate content with pre-roll ads, or to stock only a single commercial in the ad inventory. That’s not monetization. It’s scaring your audience away.

In good news, however, the ACC network says it plans to expand from the Roku to other streaming boxes and smart TV platforms. I can’t wait.